Such worthy peeps as The Standing Room, George Hunka, Bryant Manning, and Paul Wells have passed along various bloggy quizzes and questionnaires, or "memes," as the kids like to call them. Answers ensue.
Total number of books I've owned: Somewhere between three and four thousand.
The last book I bought: Richard Rhodes’ The Making of the Atomic Bomb.
The last book I read: The galleys of Bret Easton Ellis’ Lunar Park, brilliant and insane.
Five books that mean a lot to me (in no particular order):
Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus;
Wallace Stevens, Collected Poems; Morton Feldman, Give My Regards to Eighth Street; Richard Adams, Watership Down (floored me when I was a kid); Henry James, The Wings of the Dove (ain't the last line the all-conquering truth).
Total number of films I own on DVD and video: Two hundred or so.
Last film I bought: Laura. "I hope you'll never regret
what promises to be a disgustingly earthy relationship…. For a
charming, intelligent girl, you've certainly surrounded yourself with a
remarkable collection of dopes…. I'd reached the point where I needed
official surroundings…. With you, a lean, strong body is the measure of
a man…. It was one of her usual round-ups of bizarre and nondescript
characters, corraled from every stratum of society…. I demolished his
affectations, exposed his camouflaged imitations of better painters,
ridiculed his theories.…Naturally, she could never regard him seriously
again…. He's no good, but he's what I want…. I write with a goose quill
dipped in venom…. Have you ever heard a ghost ask for eggs?"
Last film I watched: Hangmen Also Die.
Five films that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me (in no
particular order): Chinatown, The Third Man, Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice, Godfather Part II, Bring It On (our date movie).
If you could be any character portrayed in a movie, who would it be?
Monsieur Hulot.
Total volume of music on your computer? 19.2 GB
Last CD you bought? Ildebrando Pizzetti’s L’assassinio nella cathedrale (Opera d’oro)
Song currently playing? Glass’ Koyaanisqatsi (can’t stop)
Five songs I listen to a lot or that mean a lot to me? 1. Strauss’ Salome.
Something terrible is going to happen. 2. Radiohead’s “Everything In
Its Right Place." Everything is not in in its right place, but that’s
OK. 3. Bob Dylan's "Simple Twist of Fate":
"Pushed the window open wide, felt an emptiness inside...." 4. Messiaen, Quartet for the End of Time. There are solutions. 5. Brahms’s
Intermezzo Op. 117 No. 1. This could be played at my funeral, if
someone were in the mood.
Five people to whom I'm passing the baton? Sasha Frere-Jones, Adam Baer, Pack, The Fredösphere, Brad Pitt (can't hurt to try).
